5 Mr. Lewis Loyd, according to his own account to the Lords' committee in 1819, began business in 1792, at Manchester, where having spent a year, he removed to London, and has since re-mained, with a partnership in the Manchester firm. According to report he was originally an Unitarian clergyman, but soon tired of that vocation; finding it, as he is sometimes said to con-fess after dinner, much more profitable and agreeable to spend his time in turning over Bank notes, than in turning up the whites of his eyes. This antithesis reminds me that the figure is one to which Mr. Loyd is partial. When Frys and Chapman, the Quaker Bankers, failed, a member of the society took his account to Jones Loyd. "We think you right, friend," said the senior partner; "it is wiser to place thy money with a rich sin-ner than a poor saint."

But it is not in argument only that the Bank of England is liable to be worsted by such private Bankers as Mr. Denison or Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd. Men of their means, it is obvious, wield weapons of still greater power, and, had they been so disposed, might have gone for gold, and stopped the Bank of England over and over again. Whenever the Bank has had only a few millions of gold, it has been at their mercy. There are others too who could have done, and still can do, the same thing, should it so please them. What a condition for a National Bank ! What a reflection for our ministers of state! The only establishment the country possesses for the transaction of public business, the finance operations of government, and the official sustainment of the commerce of the greatest manufacturing and mercantile nation the world embraces upon its ample bosom, is so weak, so poor, and so helpless, that two private individuals, at any hour of the day they may choose, have the power to present themselves at the counter and make it bankrupt!

Of other leading firms - such as Barclay's; Smith6, Payne and Smith's; Robarts, Curtis, and Co.; Willis's, etc. - it is unnecessary to make particular mention. They possess, in common, the qualities and characteristics which have made London Bankers so powerful and eminent - namely, great wealth and exemplary conduct; and they have thus obtained extensive connexions, the full value of which is not generally understood. The number of persons keeping accounts with such houses as these, and the amount of some of the balances lying for long periods in their hands, are surprising. At Smith, Payne, and Smith's, for instance, many of the nobility bank, and, amongst them, the Duke of Norfolk. An idea may be formed of the sums which are frequently lying to the credit of such men at their Bankers', when it is remembered that at the time of Wright and Co.'s failure the Duke of Norfolk had 70,000l. in that Bank. Another of Smith and Payne's customers is Sir R. Arkwright, by all accounts the wealthiest man in England: he is considered to be worth at least five millions sterling. Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smith receive a portion of his dividends, which amount to near 200,000l. a year.

6 The Smiths were originally small tradespeople at Nottingham, where, having several thrifty agricultural acquaintances, they turned a retail shop into a Bank; and taking deposits upon interest from their friends the farmers, they lent them out to the manufacturers of the town. A few years after this they opened a second Bank at Lincoln; and then a third at Hull. The Arkwrights and Wilberforces were amongst the number of their earliest and best customers and supporters. They were not long in forming a connexion with Mr. Payne, of London; and thenceforward carried on a business which, for the extent and value of its transactions during a term of fifty years, was second to that of no Bank in England. Mr. Pitt made the head of the house a peer, by the title of Lord Carrington.

There are two other Banking-houses of which it may not be out of place to say a few words, in order to make the view complete which it has been attempted to give of the private Banks of London. These houses are Coutts' and Glyn's, which may perhaps be ranked as nearly equal in point of income, though somewhat different in their respective principles and modes of business. They are supposed to be in the receipt of the largest revenues now or ever realized by Banking; making, each of them, some ninety thousand pounds, or so, a year.

The rise and history of Courts' Bank has been rendered familiar to most persons by the figure its founder - Mr. Coutts - and his second wife (afterwards Duchess of St. Alban's) made a few years back in the fashionable circles of London and Brighton. It resembles not a few of the greatest establishments this country has produced, in having sprung from a small beginning, and owed its fortune to the sagacity and perseverance of an humble individual, who was remarkable at the outset of his career for strict economy. It is principally a Bank of deposit, and can hardly be said to have a commercial character. The number of its discount accounts is small, and perhaps there is not a house in London in which fewer Bills are cashed during the year. The only branch of general Banking business in which it at all enters into competition with the principal firms in the City, is the agency to Country Banks. Coutts' have always done the town business of some of the best Scotch Banks. Everywhere in England, and particularly in London, all great things go in tides.

Coutts' has for years been the Bank of the monied portion of the nobility - of persons who are seldom without having sums of 10,000l. and even 100,000l. lying to their credit. Early in the reign of George III. different members of the royal family, and many of the landed aristocracy of England and Scotland, began to bank at Coutts'; and they have since increased to a multitude. Enormous balances are thus accumulated, and the safest and most profitable description of business in which a Banker can be engaged is steadily transacted by the firm.